THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
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HE PERFORMANCE OF POLITICAL DUTIES 
 
 THE GREAT NEED of the PRESENT DAY. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 Literary Societies of the University of North Carolina, 
 AT Chapel Hill, June 6th, 1883, 
 
 By Hon. THOMAS C. MANNING, LL. D. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Dialectic 
 
 and PhilantJwopic Societies, 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: — 
 I wish to speak to you to-day 
 on a practical subject — the du- 
 ties of citizenship: There can be 
 no greater mistake than to sup- 
 pose that political duties are con- 
 fined to one class of citizens, or 
 that a proper and diligent perfor- 
 mance of them is the special obli- 
 gation of those who seek or occu- 
 py public place. There has grown 
 up in our country a sentiment that 
 active participation in public af- 
 fairs implies in some sort a degra- 
 dation of one's personality, and it 
 seems to be assumed that the con- 
 secration of a man's life to the 
 public service is a waste of resour- 
 ces that would be better employed 
 in other channels of activity. 
 The consequence is that politics 
 
 as a science and a pursuit has 
 been separated from its higher 
 functions, and has come to mean 
 something ignoble and unworthy 
 of men who are scholarly, pure, 
 and bent upon the attainment of 
 high and noble ends. 
 
 And yet no one knows better 
 than the scholar that no country 
 has ever attained exalted rank 
 among the nations except through 
 the services of its great men, and 
 the greatness of its men has con- 
 sisted in the dedication of them- 
 selves to their country's service 
 — in their abnegation of self, their 
 repudiation of personal aims, and 
 the consecration of their lives to 
 the promotion of the public wel- 
 fare. 
 
 Do not let us fall into the error 
 of supposing that the ancients had 
 a monopoly of civic virtue, or that 
 
 to 
 
 V 
 
The Performance of Political Duties 
 
 the world ceases to produce men 
 equal to any in the past, as well 
 fitted as they to the conduct of 
 affairs, as well able to bear the 
 burdens of State, as well adapted 
 to the circumstances of their time 
 as those whose names are written 
 on historic rolls and whose ca- 
 reers are subjects of our study, 
 our admiration and our imitation. 
 It is true that nations fail to re- 
 produce great characters, but it is 
 equally true that such barenness 
 marks unmistakably a nation's de- 
 cadence, and indicates its not re- 
 mote extinction. 
 
 But great men are only a pro- 
 duct of a nation's force, the evolu- 
 tion from its active qualities of in- 
 telligence, elevation of character, 
 noble purpose, lofty aspiration. 
 There are great occasions — crises 
 in a nation's history — when one 
 man steps out as it were from the 
 womb of time and impresses him- 
 self upon the nation's character, 
 and draws upward to himself the 
 body of his fellow-men, raises 
 them to the higher plane whereon 
 he moves. But as a general thing 
 great men are the legitimate off- 
 spring of the time in which they 
 live, and are moulded by the for- 
 ces at work within the people that 
 has produced them. 
 
 We should be very loth to ad- 
 mit that the galaxy of men who 
 crowned the work of our revolu- 
 tion by establishing the govern- 
 ment, under which we have lived 
 
 so happily tind have thrived so 
 well, were inferior to any of a 
 preceeding age. We are in the 
 habit of referring to the age in 
 which they lived and moved as 
 the halcyon days of the Republic, 
 and we depreciate the present and 
 accuse our own times of depravity 
 and self seeking. If the charge be 
 well founded, it behooves us to 
 apply a remedy, and therefore I 
 know of no subject more worthy 
 of your attention right now than 
 the ascertainment of the po- 
 litical duties of the present hour. 
 It will of course be understood 
 that I am speaking of politics not 
 in a partism sense, and that I shall 
 use the word democracy not in its 
 restricted meaning as disignating 
 a party, but as expressing that 
 system, or set of principles, which 
 has as its basis the cardinal dog- 
 ma that the people is the source 
 of all political power, and its well 
 being the chief end and aim of 
 government. 
 
 Democracy constructs its sys- 
 tem upon the theory that the peo- 
 ple are pure, that they know their 
 wants, and will not permit the 
 forms of government to be applied 
 to other purposes than their ben- 
 efit. Details are worked out in 
 different ways according to the 
 genius and temper of different 
 peoples, influenced by present 
 needs and affected in a great de- 
 gree by their previous histories. 
 But the underlying principle per- 
 
THE Great Need of the Present Day. 
 
 meates the whole system, that the 
 people govern themselves, and 
 when a government constructed 
 on that principle becomes corrupt, 
 it must needs be that the people 
 have become corrupt long before, 
 or that they have grown indiffer- 
 ent. And the consequences are 
 equally pernicious whether the 
 corruption of the government 
 proceeds from the one cause or 
 the other. It is not possible for 
 us to admit that corruption has 
 become so widespread that it has 
 infected the whole body of our 
 people. There is not sufficient 
 ground for such assumption, but 
 the decay of public purity is so 
 universally admitted, and the 
 modes of political action are so 
 generally condemned as denoting 
 political depravity, that it has 
 grown into an axiom that political 
 morals have a different code from 
 personal morals, and that a pub- 
 lic man may do in the domain of 
 statesmanship what he would re- 
 fuse to do in the governance of 
 his private life. 
 
 Now it is not my purpose to 
 enter the field of disputation, and 
 endeaver to demonstrate the un- 
 soundness of this theory. I do 
 not think it obtains among the 
 masses, nor that any public man 
 of America would be willing to 
 own that he accepted it as a rule 
 for his own guidance. 
 
 The old-world theory that gov- 
 ernments are instituted for the 
 
 benefit of the governors, whose 
 main duty is to keep the governed 
 in subjection, was exploded with 
 terrific violence by the French 
 Revolution. That followed close 
 upon the struggle made upon our 
 own soil. No doubt the success- 
 ful assertion made here of the 
 democratic principle was the spark 
 that kindled that conflagration. 
 But how different the methods of 
 the two peoples, and how different 
 the results! Here an orderly, 
 practical working out of the prin- 
 ciple to its legitimate results! 
 There a fierce and rampant icono- 
 clasm which destroyed for the 
 mere sake of destroying. Here 
 a systematic construction of a po- 
 litical edifice, symmetrical and 
 well arranged, thoroughly adapt- 
 ed to its purpose. There a con- 
 geries of ill-digested theories, the 
 vain attempt of idealists to satisfy 
 practical wants by brilliant and 
 imposing generalizations. Here 
 all good common sense. There 
 all sound and fury, signifying 
 nothing. 
 
 A century has passed by and 
 the same contrast with some of its 
 outlines perhaps a little faded, 
 confronts the world to-day. 
 France- again boasts a republic 
 without really understanding what 
 the word means, and with no con- 
 ception of that orderly and well 
 regulated liberty which is now so 
 completely domesticated here that 
 it seems as if it were an instinct. 
 
The Performance of Political Duties 
 
 Of course we owe our political 
 conceptions in some degree to 
 race. Enthusiastic youth is apt 
 to suppose that America is the 
 birthplace of liberty, and Fourth 
 of July orators have told us with 
 endless iteration that but for our 
 revolt of the last century the 
 world would yet be sunk in leth- 
 argy and the people be bound 
 even now with chains. No Amer- 
 ican having the just pride in his 
 country that he should have, 
 Avould disparage the splendid 
 achievements of those whom with 
 loving homage we call the fathers 
 of our country, but the spirit of 
 liberty was implanted in us by an 
 ancestry that extended back to a 
 period before the first immigrant 
 turned his face hitherward, and it 
 grew and strengthened until it 
 found here opportunity for its full 
 development into that stately tree 
 underneath whose branches we 
 sit to-day. How crude our first 
 conceptions were is manifest from 
 the spirit which prompted the 
 first enactments of some of our 
 infant colonies. The motive for 
 immigration at first was not so 
 much freedom of political action 
 as of religious belief, but no soon- 
 er had they attained this boon for 
 themselves than they proceeded 
 to deprive every one else of it. 
 Religious liberty with them meant 
 liberty to believe what they 
 taught, and though we smile at 
 this inconsistency, and recognize 
 
 how illogical were these good 
 people, I am afraid we have even 
 at this day some leaven of that 
 sturdy refusal to accord to every 
 one the right to follow whereso- 
 ever his convictions lead him in 
 that field of inquiry. 
 
 The spread of democratic ideas 
 throughout the world during the 
 century has been marvelous, and 
 is the central fact in modern 
 civilization and modern govern- 
 ment. It does not necessarily 
 follow that they necessitate a 
 government conformable in name 
 to them. Their influence silently 
 changes the practical working of 
 government, though the name of 
 and fact of monarchy remains. 
 Great Britain is a conspicuous ex- 
 ample of the existence of a re- 
 public in fact under a monarchy 
 in name. The fine phrase of M. 
 Theirs aptly and pithily expresses 
 the fact and theory— the Queen 
 reigns but does not govern. That 
 liberty-loving and sensible people 
 has gradually and patiently evolv- 
 ed a system which accomplishes 
 in an orderly way what no other 
 nation has ever done in a like de- 
 gree — the immediate realization 
 of the people's will, so as to effect 
 an instant change in the whole 
 personnel and policy of the gov- 
 ernment, whenever the people's 
 body — the Commons' House — so 
 declare. 
 
 The Premier, with his whole 
 body of colleagues, must bow be- 
 
THE Great Need of the Present Day. 
 
 5 
 
 fore an adverse vote of the Com- 
 mons, if g'iven upon a cabinet 
 question, and give place to the 
 party that has overthrown him. 
 The Commons has become so 
 completely the governing power 
 that it is now an accepted consti- 
 tutional principle that the other 
 House must agree with it upon 
 any vital measure. Theoretically 
 the Lords is a co-equal branch of 
 the legislature, and does refuse to 
 concur in bills that are not re- 
 garded as of supreme importance, 
 but on all matters of sufficient 
 gravity to awaken the public con- 
 science and interest, the Lords 
 must give way. And this is not 
 from any lack of ability. The 
 debaters in the Lords upon any 
 great occasion — -the field-nights 
 of the session — will not lose by 
 comparison with the Commons, 
 even when the Commons is at its 
 best. 
 
 We should he appalled if any 
 one should advance the theory 
 that our Senate ought to exercise 
 only nominal functions, and that 
 its duty was to yield its own con- 
 victions to those of the other 
 branch of Congress. And noth- 
 ing better illustrates the inability 
 of Frenchmen to comprehend the 
 nature of a republic governed by 
 a fixed law than the attempt of 
 Gambetta to abolish the French 
 senate because it would not adopt 
 his project for changing the elec- 
 toral law. Centralized authority, 
 
 as the governing power, the au- 
 tocracy of a single will, is the an- 
 tipodal conception to government 
 by the will of the nation. 
 
 The first duty of the men of the 
 present day is to elevate the tone 
 of public morals, to infuse into the 
 people a higher sense of political 
 obligations, to dethrone venalty, 
 and to teach the coming genera- 
 tion that they should no more 
 tolerate politcal than personal 
 immorality, and that a man who 
 is not worthy of social respect 
 does not deserve political eleva- 
 tion. This cannot be accomplish- 
 ed without the aid of the culti- 
 vated intellect of the nation 
 coming to the rescue, and the 
 accomplishment of it cannot be 
 omitted without danger to the 
 institutions under which we pro- 
 fess to be proud to live. And 
 this is my reason and my excuse 
 for departing from the usual course 
 of selecting literary themes for 
 such an occasion as this, and pre- 
 ferring to obtrude upon your con- 
 sideration a great and absorbing 
 practical question that ought to 
 receive the well considered atten- 
 tion of scholars, not less than of 
 those who are concerned more 
 immediately with the performance 
 of political functions. 
 
 The basis of all high character 
 is honesty— honesty in the larger 
 sense of the word — not only hon- 
 esty in that sense which means 
 payment of monetary obligations, 
 
The Performance of Political Duties 
 
 though that is the foundation of 
 honesty in all other things, but 
 straight -forwardness in action, 
 sincerity in thought and speech, 
 purity of motive, all of which 
 bring elevation of character. You 
 at once admit that he who is 
 groveling in his aims, insincere 
 in his purposes, and dishonest in 
 his dealings, is not worthy of asso- 
 ciation in the every-day concerns 
 of life. Why should you tolerate 
 such characteristics in him who is 
 to fill places of honor, power and 
 responsibility .'' 
 
 The masses receive tone and 
 bias from those who are on a 
 higher plane than themselves. 
 Corruption never commences be- 
 low and proceeds thence upwards. 
 The upper strata of society takes 
 the infection first, and the poison 
 diffuses through that layer of the 
 organism before it penetrates the 
 vitals of the body politic. The 
 cure must be applied where the 
 disease originated, and the heal- 
 thy sentiment of those who first 
 gave way to the improper tenden- 
 cy must first be restored before 
 any perceptible impression can be 
 made on those who receive instead 
 of originating ideas. 
 
 That there is a public and gen- 
 eral recognition of decadence in 
 public morals is apparent from 
 the fact that accusations against 
 public men receive immediate 
 credence. The belief that thye 
 will and do act from corrupt or 
 
 selfish motives is so deeply seated 
 that the public conscience, instead 
 of being surprised at the charge 
 of venality, accepts it as true 
 without waiting for proof of it. 
 It seems, so to speak, natural that 
 they should be swayed by personal 
 and unworthy motives, and there- 
 fore when any charge of a specific 
 act is made, the public jumps to 
 the conclusion that it is true. 
 Much of this must be laid to the 
 account of human nature. It is 
 very sad to know that the appe- 
 tite for scandal is so keenly witted 
 that men more readily believe ill 
 of their fellows than good. It is 
 so delightful for those below to 
 pull down those that are above. 
 Our self complacency is gratified 
 in believing that others are no 
 better than ourselves, and there 
 seems to be implanted in us a 
 distrust of apparent qualities in 
 others that separate them from 
 ourselves by the possession of no- 
 bler instincts and spirations than 
 we feel in our own breasts. But 
 after giving due weight to this 
 tendency there is in the present 
 proneness to believe ill of those 
 who conduct public affairs a man- 
 ifestation of conviction that it is 
 their normal condition. 
 
 And after all there is the hu- 
 miliating consciousness that there 
 is foundation for this distrust, and 
 that the actual conduct of affairs 
 is not what it should be. It will 
 not do to say that the American 
 
THE Great Need of the Present Day. 
 
 people, with its practical aptitudes, 
 its thorough convictions has found 
 the solution of difficulties in gov- 
 ernment better than any other, 
 and that its own country and its 
 own government is immeasurably 
 superior to every other, can 
 find no remedy for such a condi- 
 tion of affairs. Americans have a 
 supreme confidence in themselves. 
 They believe they are equal to 
 any emergency. Foreigners for- 
 merly sneered at this quality, but 
 they have at length come to 
 recognize there is reason for it. 
 Surely we not intend to admit 
 that there is one difficulty we can- 
 not surmount — one evil we can- 
 not reform — and that difficulty in 
 the very domain where we arro- 
 gate to ourselves most knowledge 
 and the clearest conceptions — the 
 domain of government. 
 
 Laxity in attention to public 
 affairs has become the one beset- 
 ting sin of our people. Our gov- 
 ernment was founded on the 
 theory that when a people have 
 the right to govern themselves 
 they would neglect no act essen- 
 tial to the exercise of that right, 
 but what is the fact.-* From one 
 end of the country to the other 
 the fact is proclaimed that a large 
 portion of the intelligence and 
 higher culture of the nation os- 
 tentatiously echew politics, and 
 will have nothing to do with it. 
 Now politics in one sense is suffi- 
 ciently repulsive to explain their 
 
 conduct, but I have already said I 
 am not using the term in the or- 
 dinary sense. I am not thinking 
 or speaking of it in any other sense 
 than that intelligent interest which 
 I insist every man in a republican 
 country should take in the mea- 
 sures that are proposed for its 
 government. It is undeniable 
 that when one wishes to belittle 
 another and to signify that one is 
 making a trade of public life, he 
 is stigmatized as a politician. I 
 have nothing to say in depreca- 
 tion of the epithet or of its appli- 
 cation. The point I am trying to 
 make is that the great body of the 
 people ought to prevent any one 
 from making politics a trade, and 
 ought to take such interest in public 
 affairs, and personally demonstrate 
 that interest by action as to foil 
 and thwart the designs of those 
 who degrade politics into a trade. 
 Now the great body of the people 
 will not act until moved, and 
 there are two forces to move 
 them. One is the self-seeking 
 element whose purposes are sel- 
 fish. The other is the patriotic 
 element whose purposes are the 
 public good, and if this last ele- 
 ment is quiescent, apathetic and 
 indifferent, the other and base 
 motive power, must predominate 
 and produce bad government. 
 
 Probably the greatest danger 
 that menaces the working of Re- 
 publican institutions is the consol- 
 idation of the influence of the 
 
8 
 
 The Performance of Political Duties 
 
 money power. Concentrated 
 wealth is the dynasty of modern 
 States. Like all dynasties it seeks 
 to attract power to itself and 
 when suffrage is universal, the in- 
 fluence of wealth upon the elec- 
 torate is as pernicious as it is uni- 
 versal. Of course it cloaks its de- 
 signs under specious pretences. 
 It blatantly proclains popular 
 benefits to be its aim, and by se- 
 ducing the people into belief into 
 devotion to its cause make them 
 the unconscious abettors of the 
 mischiefs it inflicts. Under other 
 systems there are counteracting 
 influences which modify its power 
 but in a republican government 
 the power of the plutocracy has 
 nothing to oppose it but intelli- 
 gence and patriotism, and when 
 those possessing these qualities 
 abstain from participation in pub- 
 lic affairs, there is no check to the 
 domination of wealth. 
 
 You will understand I am not 
 here speaking of wealth as the 
 possession of an individval, but 
 the concentration of all the pow- 
 er of accumulated wealth to effect 
 the object of its own aggrandize- 
 ment, and to secure political pow- 
 er. We see what effects it pro- 
 duces even when wielded by an 
 individual. The acquisition of in- 
 dividual fortunes has accomplish- 
 ed results in the last decade at 
 which the nation would have 
 stood aghast so recently as twen- 
 ty-five years ago. Most Ameri- 
 
 cans sneer at what they are pleas- 
 ed to call the effete governments 
 of the old world, wherein the pos- 
 session of wealth with other influ- 
 ences, has created caste and con- 
 ferred exceptional privileges upon 
 those possessing it. Our school 
 books teach our children to scorn 
 the constitution of the House of 
 Lords in Great Brittain, which is 
 recruited alone from men who 
 have rendered distinguished ser- 
 vices to their country, or have in 
 some way displayed conspicuous 
 personal merits, while before our 
 own eyes the body in our gov- 
 ernmental structure that corres- 
 ponds to that House contains 
 members whose sole claim to that 
 position and sole means to attain 
 it is their stupendous wealth. 
 New States are raised to the dig- 
 nity of co-equal sovereignties, 
 while they are in fact close bor- 
 oughs that some hitherto unknown 
 lucky adventurer carries in his 
 pocket to return him as Senator. 
 But even this is a minor phase of 
 the evil, and not the one I have 
 in mind. 
 
 Diffused wealth elevates States 
 and peoples. It extends education 
 produces refinement, multiplies 
 comforts, and enhances the pleas- 
 ures of life. Concentrated wealth 
 creates castes and subordinates 
 everything unto itself, and when 
 it operates upon the electoral 
 body, and corrupts and debases 
 the excise of the electoral func- 
 
THE Great Need of the Present Day. 
 
 tion, purity of government is at 
 an end. What security is there 
 for popular rights, or for the pro- 
 motion of the general welfare, 
 when an influence hostile to them 
 permeates the whole structure of 
 government. 
 
 Seeing the evil influences that 
 have had full sway in late years, 
 some have despaired of the Re- 
 public. They have witnessed cor- 
 ruption rampant and acknowl- 
 edged; evil practices cofessed 
 without shame, practices more 
 evil still charged with a good 
 show of proof and a public look- 
 ing on, not with stupefaction, but 
 as if such things might be and 
 were expected. But it is not in 
 this age, nor by a people which 
 has tried the experiment, that 
 confidence in the perpetuity of 
 republican institutions is to be 
 destroyed by evanescent difficul- 
 ties. While representative gov- 
 ernment is extending its sway, 
 and its principles are finding lodg- 
 ment in the minds and convictions 
 of nations that have never tried it 
 or tried it imperfectly, it is not 
 here, their birthplace and home, 
 that the experiment will be ad- 
 mitted to be a failure. Nor is 
 there anything in the present out- 
 look, unpromising as it is in many 
 respects, to dishearten him whose 
 faith has been temporarily dis- 
 turbed. There is a manifest re- 
 awakening of the public con- 
 science, and appearance of a de- 
 
 sire to relegate those who have 
 been conspicuous in employing 
 nefarious methods to the obscurity 
 from which they should never have 
 emerged.'' 
 
 The expansion of liberal ideas 
 during our century has been in- 
 deed marvelous. Old modes of 
 thought seem to have perished. 
 Conceptions of the universe, of 
 our planet as a part of it, of man 
 as the highest form of intelligence 
 upon it, and his relations to his 
 fellow-man and to the society of 
 which he forms part, have been 
 illuminated by the discoveries of 
 science, the speculations of phi- 
 losophers, and the disquisitions of 
 humanitarians. Inquiries into the 
 science of government have kept 
 pace with these explorations of 
 otlier fields, and the dogma with 
 which our people started as a ba- 
 sis has gradually and almost im- 
 perceptibly unfolded itself among 
 modern peoples. Representative 
 institutions are the only possible 
 government of the future. This 
 is conspicuously true of those na- 
 tions that belong to the Teutonic 
 race, and high above all is it true of 
 the english-speaking people. The 
 germ of free popular government 
 has expanded among them with 
 greater rapidity than any other. 
 They appear to seize, intuitively 
 its true spirit, and to work out the 
 theory in a more practical and sub- 
 stantial form than any other. How 
 different their reduction into prac- 
 
10 
 
 The Performance of Political Duties 
 
 tice of simple general principles 
 from the vagaries of speculative 
 theorists of other races. Compare 
 the noble structure of our consti- 
 tution with the glittering systems 
 that the Abbe Sieyes formulated. 
 Observe the good sense, the 
 adaption of means to ends, the 
 gradual incorporation in the Eng- 
 lish constitution of the principles 
 of popular freedom while retain- 
 ing old forms. And what a future 
 does it unfold for coming genera- 
 tions. The despairing exclama- 
 tion of Alexander sighing for 
 more worlds to conquer finds no 
 echo in the hearts of English- 
 speaking peoples. Their own 
 daring spirit of adventure finds 
 new worlds. They spread out in- 
 to the utterermost corners of the 
 earth, fix themselves irrevocably 
 upon foreign soil and subdue na- 
 tions unto themselves, or so in- 
 sinuate their modes of thought 
 and principles of action in them 
 that they are insensibly (iomina- 
 ted by English ideas, and become 
 one in that great family of En- 
 glish peoples that to all appear- 
 ance seems destined to subdue 
 the globe. 
 
 To us, more perhaps than to 
 any other nation, are public vir- 
 tues and political education nec- 
 cessary — necessary not only to 
 the beneficent operation but to 
 the actual existence of our insti- 
 tutions. In other nations the 
 stability of the existing order is 
 
 so guaranteed that fluctuations of 
 popular sentiment do not imme- 
 diately or radically effect it. But 
 with us, where all institutional 
 existence depends for perpetua- 
 tion on the continuance of popular 
 consent, the influences which con- 
 trol that consent inevitably at- 
 tract our highest solicitude. Those 
 influences, expressed in general 
 terms, are right feeling and right 
 thinking, and hence the prime 
 necessity of our civil life is the 
 education of the public conscience 
 and the public mind in civil af- 
 fairs. 
 
 The great practical question 
 therefore which this necessity im- 
 poses on us for solution is what is 
 the best method of accomplishing 
 the end in view. Much has been 
 accomplished in that direction by 
 the utterances of unpartisan jour- 
 nals, by political debates and es- 
 says, and by the writings of great 
 publicists. But much more re- 
 mains to be done, and what re- 
 mains cannot be done by fugative 
 paragraphs, occasional debates 
 and didactic tomes. The under- 
 taking is vast and necessitates 
 conscientious, patient and persis- 
 tent labor. Institutions of learn- 
 ing are therefore the most effec- 
 tive agencies for the promotion of 
 this good work. Right here in 
 our schools and colleges must be 
 laid the basis of our political re- 
 generation and purification. In 
 the school day season of life the 
 
THE Great Need of the Present Day. 
 
 n 
 
 mental and emotional structure 
 has its highest malleability, and 
 its highest susceptibility of per- 
 manent impression. We find 
 then and there, as we never again 
 find, the organization, the meth- 
 ods, the appliances and the sur- 
 roundings necessary to the gene- 
 sis of right feeling and right 
 thinking. In that early commu- 
 nity alone is it practicable to car- 
 ry on that harmonious cultiva- 
 tion of mind and heart necessary 
 to full and complete education. 
 There alone is it practicable to 
 conjoin virtuous action with the 
 inculcation of virtuous maxims, 
 and that leads up to the formation 
 of those virtuous habits which are 
 our best assurances of correct 
 conduct. Here then, I reiterate, 
 we must lay the foundation of 
 knowledge and of right principle 
 in respect to political obligation 
 which is the condition precedent 
 of a purer code of political ethics. 
 I mention therefore as a practi- 
 cal corallary from this proposition 
 that a chair of political philosophy 
 should be as permanent a feature 
 in the curriculum of American col- 
 leges as a chair of natural phi- 
 losophy or of moral philoso- 
 phy. We have taught in all of 
 our colleges man's duty to God 
 and to his fellow man, but our 
 schools contain no provision 
 whatever for tuition upon the 
 wide range of duties growing out 
 of men's political relations with 
 
 each other and with the State. 
 The more we reflect upon it the 
 more astonishing the hiatus be- 
 comes. Great institutions, pre- 
 sumably embodying the culture, 
 the intelligence and conservator}' 
 wisdom of the country, tender to 
 the Republic as their eleves, fitted 
 for the great functions of life, men 
 who are ignorant of one of the 
 most pregnant of those functions 
 — men armed with the elective 
 franchise and thus entrusted with 
 the destinies of the nation, who 
 are wholly untaught in the funda- 
 mental duties of citizenship. 
 
 This is a crying and danger 
 breeding omission, and becomes 
 more and more a subject of solici- 
 tous thought as our population 
 grows denser and as the struggle 
 for existence becomes more des- 
 perate, while the elective franchise 
 has been extended to its utmost 
 limit, and ignorance of civic obli- 
 gation is magnified into a standing 
 menac5 and peril. 
 
 It does not consist with the 
 scheme or scope of this address 
 to discuss any particular system 
 which might be the special sub- 
 ject of instruction in the domain 
 of political philosophy, and yet 
 there is one which is so general 
 in its nature, and so pervading in 
 its importance that I must advert 
 to it. It is the danger to consti- 
 tutional government that comes 
 from a rampant development of 
 the democratical idea. If there is 
 
12 
 
 The Performance of PoLrncAL Duties 
 
 one inculcation, of experience 
 which may be assumed as an ab- 
 solute postulate, it is that supreme 
 power cannot be safely lodged ex- 
 clusively in the hands of the one, the 
 few or the many. Neither King 
 nor aristocracy nor majority 
 alone therefore can be trusted 
 with unchecked power. Each 
 must be a check upon the other. 
 There must be checks and bal- 
 ances. The founders of our re- 
 public clearly understood this. 
 Their debates in the great con- 
 vention of 1789 attest it. Never 
 for a moment were they misled 
 by the fatal impiety and falsity 
 of the utterance that the voice of 
 the people is the voice of God. 
 They were not so ignorant of hu- 
 man nature, or of the teachings of 
 the past as to expect justice from 
 the reign of unfettered majorities 
 any more than from the rule of a 
 single absolute despot. They 
 were not such shallow optimists 
 as to believe that by merely con- 
 glomerating a number of imperfect 
 and simple units they could educe 
 a perfect and sinless aggregate. On 
 the'contrary they knew thatthe evil 
 tendencies of men were intensified 
 rather than weakened by aggre- 
 gation, and that they required 
 even stronger restraints in the 
 mass than as individuals. They 
 would not therefore trust their 
 country to the unbridled sway of 
 many erring men, and instead of 
 advocating the absolute rule of 
 
 majorities they combatted it, and 
 their keen ears detected more of 
 Satanic than of divine refrain in 
 the vox popiili dogma that cap- 
 tivates by its sonorous expression. 
 They saw that the great and 
 abiding peril to their plan of free 
 government lay in the majority 
 rule, and hence their cardinal aim 
 was so to fashion and formulate 
 their plan as to prevent that rule 
 from becoming supreme and ab- 
 solute. The fruit of their labors 
 is that written instrument which 
 we call a Constitution, and which 
 in the perfection of its details, in 
 the general symmetry of its whole, 
 in the political wisdom of which 
 it is the highest expression, there 
 was not an exemplar, and there 
 never can be a reproduction. 
 There it stands in solitary maj- 
 esty, its great outlines in bold 
 relief upon the political sky, the 
 wonder of the age that produced 
 it, and the marvel of all political 
 thinkers from then till now. 
 
 What we need then as a strong 
 and immutable constituent in the 
 faculty of every American institu- 
 tion of learning is a chair of polit- 
 ical philosophy that shall have 
 for its special functions the ex- 
 pounding of the practical duties 
 of citizenship, and shall bring 
 those duties within the sphere of 
 moral obligation, not only teach- 
 ing those duties and instructing 
 as to their nature and sphere, but 
 imposing their performance as a 
 
THE Great Need of the Present Day. 
 
 13 
 
 sacred and imprescriptible debt performance of the political func- 
 upon the coming generations. 1 tions that appertain to citizens of 
 
 And this is the great practical 
 lesson I would enforce, that the 
 
 our republic is the important duty 
 of the hour. 
 
I 
 
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